Watching You Dream

This factory is wider than
Birmingham, volcano red
and smeared with ash. The rafters
loom squarely overhead; gargoyles
nest on the beams; dust
frames the spider webs.
I've parted the panels
of the filthy plastic curtain, stepped
right onto the factory floor. Gnomes
scuttle by, bearing broken watches,
human infants, crates of shredded gauze.
I am asking the foreman -- he, she
with the three triangular heads --
where you are, but it says you left hurriedly
just before lunch.

The sea floor became a festival
tonight -- this week the carnival
performs underwater. My sixth grade teacher
is the barker, luring in the marks,
staccato as any grammar drill.
The freaks' tent is a jellyfish,
translucent, its mouth a chandelier.
Everyone is here -- my aunt a human
pincushion, bobbing on her bed of nails;
an old boss, crooning to her snakes;
three dead friends, in widows' weeds,
huddled around a crystal ball.
The contortionist shrugs, in three separate places,
tells me you had business in Marrakesh
and didn't show up
before the caravan left.

Lying here on this gritty mattress,
I am watching you mutter, murmur,
the occasional broken syllable
dribbling from your lips.
Are you dodging mercenaries
or feasting with them,
are the shadows advancing
with razors or bouquets?
I have laid out the cards
in three different configurations;
each time, the arcana
insist you cannot be traced.
I lean here, watching your body
(bookmark, vacant mansion), watching
you twitch (aftershocks
of wherever you're traveling),
watching you (wholly familiar
and wholly absent), watching
until you wake.

© Claud Reich, 1996

Poems by Claud Reich

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